There is something ironic about recommending a big list of blogs about productivity. Skepticism here is warranted: Most productivity blogs are simply not worth reading. But a handful are.
Below are 16 blogs that have actionable advice and thought-provoking ideas for organizations looking to create better workflow efficiency, more productive work environments and more effective ways to get things done.
The Help Scout Blog
The blog at support software company Help Scout features some of the most thoughtful posts you’ll find on organization, internal processes and team productivity. Case in point: Leah Knobler’s post from February on how they replaced their weekly all-hands-on-deck meeting with asynchronous video updates.
The Productivity Pro
Laura Stack, who has authored seven books on productivity and management, shares her insights at her blog, The Productivity Pro. A good recent example of these insights is a post from late March on the importance of regular team-wide training, which Stack says both saves money in the long run and keeps teams performing at a high level.
DocumentSnap
Brooks Duncan has been chronicling his efforts to go going paperless on DocumentSnap since 2008. While Duncan’s advice is mostly aimed at individuals, his tips on Evernote best practices and creating searchable documents would be great for organizations that have struggled to move all their processes to the digital realm.
The Focus Booster Blog
Focus Booster is a newer company with an app that lets users manage and track time based on the Pomodoro Technique for productivity — working in focused 25-minute sprints. The company’s blog is a good one to keep an eye on as it gains traction. For now, start with the team’s The Secret to Becoming Ultra-Productive post.
The EventBoard Blog
EventBoard creates tools specifically to make meetings more efficient, so its team understands the pain points of organizational productivity pretty well. Those insights inform both product design and their blog posts, including a nice read from late February on unconventional ways to boost team productivity.
SlackHQ
Organizations around the world have adopted group chat platform Slack, whose team has some great insights on management, company growth and productivity on the SlackHQ blog. A good starting point is the post How to Meet 200 People in 200 Days, featuring Shutterstock’s Danny Groner.
The Muse’s Productivity Channel
Thousands of people read The Muse every day for its career advice, but the publication’s Productivity section deserves special attention. A good recent example is the post Stack Overflow’s Richard Moy wrote on what he learned by forcing himself to leave work every day at 5 p.m.
Productivity501
Mark Shead’s Productivity501 ostensibly covers personal productivity, but it is written from the perspective of someone who has made a career of showing organizations how they can use technology to boost company-wide productivity. A cornerstone post here is Shead’s Organization Mentality, in which he shows readers how to change their mindsets so that organization and better workflows will occur naturally.
The Business Best Practices Channel on RingCentral’s Blog
Business communications provider RingCentral has a great section of its blog dedicated to business best practices and internal procedures. Admittedly, many of the posts fall outside the scope of organizational productivity, but then you’ll come across a gem such as Peter Davidson’s post on maintaining accountability in a virtual workplace.
Accidental Creative
Accidental Creative teaches teams how to harness their collective creative genius and turn that into tangible business results. A good starting point is Todd Henry’s post Where You Get Stuck (And What To Do About It).
The i4cp Productivity Blog
The blog the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) writes is one of the best resources anywhere for internal efficiency and productivity. Carol Morrison’s 5 Signs Your Organization Has a Healthy Learning Culture post is an especially good read.
Time Management Ninja
Time Management Ninja Craig Jarrow has made a career of teaching organizations to be more productive, and he gets pretty granular in the topics he covers on his blog. For example: His post from April on whether any of us actually need an email app on our phones.
“You don’t need to check your email all day long,” he writes. “You don’t need to check it at dinner, in the bathroom, or driving in your car. Reprioritize email in your life. Check it only a few times per day. Try a little less email, and a little more intentional living.”
The Productivity Channel on Glip’s Blog
The team that designed messaging app Glip wants organizations to do away with inboxes entirely for the sake of better workflows. On Glip’s blog, there is a channel dedicated to productivity that has some thought-provoking posts. One of those is the June 2015 post that explores the future of teamwork.
The Sparkline
Fizzle’s Sparkline blog is actually dedicated to helping new and would-be entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground, but a key part of that conversation is designing the workflows that allow these businesses to scale — sometimes very quickly.
It’s a podcast rather than a post, but Fizzle co-founder Chase Reeves has some nice points about pacing yourself and staying productive to avoid burnout.
The DeskTime Blog
DeskTime’s time-tracking platform is currently used by nearly 68,000 people around the world, and the same insights that allowed the company to gain that kind of traction are also on display on the company’s blog. Check out the DeskTime team’s post from mid-February on how to put together non-cringeworthy team-building events that actually work.
Daniel Pink’s Office Hours Podcast
One more resource for your ears rather than your eyes, Free Agent Nation author Daniel Pink does some pretty deep dives with great thinkers on his Office Hours podcast. A good starting point is Pink’s chat with Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer, co-authors of the book The Progress Principle.
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